APPOINTMENT OF CITY ORGANISTS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume L, Issue 15325, 11 June 1913, Page 4

APPOINTMENT OF CITY ORGANISTS.

Sir,—lt may bo remembered that when the Auckland City Council, acting upon the advice of their Selection Committee, thought of advertising abroad for a city organist, a few of our local musicians, voiced by the Society of Musicians, asserted that an efficient organist could not be obtained from England at the salary offered, viz., £400 a year. It may now be instructive to record the fact that tho Wellington City Council subsequently determined to try" this experiment when faced with the necessity of filling tho vacancy occasioned by Mr. Maughan Barnctt's transfer to Auckland, and that 86 applications were.received to their advertisement, moro'than 50 of which were from England. Tho result of which is that Mr. Bernard Page, organist of the Carmelite Church in Kensington, London, has just been appointed city organist of Wellington, and any Auckland musicians acquainted with London musical lifo will know that the organist of the Carmelite Church in Ken-

sington must be. an efficient musician. It may further bo stated that the position of city organist of Liverpool— position considered to be ono of th© most desired by organists in the United Kingdom— recently been filled by advertisement and the test of competing candidates, and that the salary offered and accepted amounts to about £400 a year. Surely (ho Auckland City Council were not well advised. Amateur.